Mr Speaker, hon President and hon Deputy President, hon members, the UDM supports Budget Vote No 1. [Applause.]
Mr President, you said we must talk, so we are ready to talk. Ngoko ke, ungasibethi mhlekazi. [So, don't stop us, sir.]
Your Office plays a critical role in determining the success of our young nation. In this regard, we have noted your plans since you took office in 2009. Consequently, the importance of your Office demands that we constructively engage its Budget Vote and its programmes to ensure its effectiveness.
It was in accordance with this line of thinking that I wrote you a letter in 2009, requesting your Office's intervention in the infrastructure backlogs facing the Eastern Cape province. Indeed, last year, as a task team, we undertook a trip to Mthatha and Bisho, under the leadership of your director-general, Dr Cassius Lubisi, and other senior officials from relevant government departments, to come up with solutions to the infrastructure backlogs facing Mthatha and its airport, as well as some sections of the N2.
We commend your Office for its swift response on this matter, together with the good progress made thus far. The people of that area and other regions are waiting with keen interest to be updated on the plans of the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Committee.
Close co-ordination between the Department of Environmental Affairs and the National Planning Commission is particularly important to the success of the programmes of the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Committee, especially in areas like the Wild Coast, as this area is the tourism mecca of the Eastern Cape. Infrastructure development in South Africa should be done in line with the United Nations Principles on Sustainable Development. These principles emphasise the need for wider consultation of communities on any planned development affecting them.
Mr President, there are signs that your office is losing its dignity and authority. It is puzzling how your party, outside government, and its tripartite alliance partners were allowed to undermine Cabinet's decision on the e-tolling fiasco. Cabinet took a decision to proceed with the e- tolling system, which received the support of most political parties during the Finance Minister's Budget Vote. However, after the leaks to the media linking the ANC's and Cosatu's investment arms to the e-tolling system, and in an apparent move by tripartite alliance partners to conceal their dodgy dealings, Cabinet's decision on e-tolling was reversed by a few leaders who met outside government.
It is unclear whether this decision was taken in consultation with you. If you were consulted, why were the Ministers of Transport and Finance not informed about the decision? They emerged, embarrassed, after the Budget Speech and also from court. If these Ministers are responsible for the e- tolling fiasco, why have they not been shown the door?
The situation is exacerbated when you, Mr President, and your Deputy President, the Leader of Government Business, contradict each other on the role the ruling party-aligned investment arms should play in accessing government tenders. For instance, early this year, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said in this House that it was wrong for the investment arms of the ruling alliance partners to access government tenders. However, in the same House last week, you said exactly the opposite, despite the glaring conflict of interest.
Given the fact that you, Mr President, see nothing wrong with this form of institutionalised corruption, the UDM is left with no choice but to seek legal opinion on this matter, and to establish whether it cannot approach the courts for redress, as we did when we took the floor-crossing legislation to the Constitutional Court.
There is a clear conflict of interest when the party that governs is first in line for government tenders. We cannot give it another name. This could also possibly mean that the guarantees government so eagerly approves are nothing other than a sophisticated method for the ruling party to extract private wealth from the public purse. It is even worse when government depletes our pension funds to cunningly channel revenue to their investment arms, using elite projects.
Strangely, government wastes no time in approving elite projects, notwithstanding public opposition. However, when one juxtaposes government's swift approval of elite projects with its dilly-dallying on the youth wage subsidy, one begins to wonder whether it has its priorities right. In this House, you announced the introduction of the subsidies. Once more, all the parties in this House supported you. You have been given the mandate, Mr President. You must lead us.
All the decisions your government makes must have been discussed and endorsed at some tripartite alliance forum. How you allow yourself to be held to ransom by some of your partners on certain decisions is beyond me. Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES: Speaker, the Goodman Gallery and the painting of the hon President Zuma this week led to serious debates in South Africa. These debates said more about the good and bad state of relationships in South Africa than they did of the painting. I will give you examples.
The Afrikaans radio channel held a phone-in programme of an hour about the painting. Eighty per cent of the people who phoned proposed that the painting should be removed immediately because it is in poor taste and it is offensive. The majority of these callers were Afrikaans and they were white.
In a similar programme on the English radio channel, the callers emphasised freedom of speech and tolerance. The participants were evenly divided in favour of and opposed to the painting. White and black callers were on both sides of the argument. It was noticeable, for me, that the views in favour of and opposed to the painting were not those of white against black. At this point, Mr Mantashe entered the debate. He saw it immediately as an issue of white against black, and as racism. Then he added, "The more black South Africans forgive and forget, the more they get kicked in the teeth." What an irresponsible statement, with which he incites people against each other!
The hon Blade Nzimande followed in the same tone. He threw down the race card and suddenly the debate obtained a serious racial content - which, initially, it was not about. Mr Barend la Grange, who painted red crosses on the painting, explained that he did it precisely in reaction to the racial argument to demonstrate, as an Afrikaner, that this is not a racial, black-white issue.
Why do I talk about this? It is because I am tired of certain leaders using the race card in every debate. This also goes for journalists who cannot hide their own racial bias in opinion pieces. In the past three months, we have been through a number of these debates.
Meneer, dit is politiek vir die kort termyn. Dit is lui politiek. Dit is politiek wat mense opsweep sonder om aan die langtermyngevolge hiervan vir Suid-Afrika te dink. Dit is Malema-politiek, as u wil. Die skade wat die Malema-tydperk aan swart-wit verhoudinge gedoen het, s ek, kan nog nie bereken word nie. Ek hoop regtig dat daardie hoofstuk agter ons is. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)
[Sir, this is politicking for the short term. This is a lazy way of politicking. This is politicking that incites without considering the long- term results for South Africa.
This is the politics of Malema, if you will. The damage that the era of Malema caused to relations between black and white, I am saying, cannot as yet be calculated. I sincerely hope that that chapter is closed.]
The fact is that in the newspapers today we see photos of the placards that were used yesterday in the ANC march, which read, "Whites hate Blacks". This was the reaction, I suppose, of the protesters to Mr Mantashe's statement of being kicked in the teeth, etc.
A reader wrote a letter, saying:
Racism - that little word that has become the political whip with which the ANC work the masses up into angry mobs and riots any time something happens that they don't like. And it's becoming really, really tiring.
In this country there will always be black people and white people. I am not planning to leave this country and I do not intend to be intimidated by racist propaganda. We can live together in conflict and hate, or in harmony and peace, as the Deputy President said. Leaders' comments and examples will determine which recipe of the two we will be following. That is why it is necessary that we learn to disagree with each other and we learn to debate with each other without hiding behind the race card every time.
Why is this type of politics so dangerous? Because it is the politics of generalisation. It is said, "All whites are racist", for example. This is definitely not true. "All whites are wealthy", it is said. This is not true - go and visit the 70 white squatter camps around Pretoria, if you want to look at that. "All blacks are corrupt." This is also not true. This type of politics may mobilise voters, but will not bring any solutions to our problems.
In Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change's, Secretary for Legal Affairs said:
Mugabe keeps talking about whites, about the British, about imaginary enemies and conspiracies, because he has no answers for the problems created by his own government.
Dit is 'n ou politieke tegniek. Hitler het die Jode uitgesonder as sondebokke vir alles wat in Duitsland verkeerd was. Ons weet hoe dit geindig het. Die vraag is: Is dit die resep wat ons hier herhaal, sonder om regtig te dink oor die implikasies oor die lang termyn? (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[This is an old political technique. Hitler singled out the Jews as scapegoats for everything that was wrong in Germany. We know what the final outcome was. The question is: Is this the recipe that we are repeating here, without really taking into consideration the implications over the long term?]
Why am I talking to you about this in this, the President's Budget Vote debate? It is because I believe that relationships have deteriorated in South Africa in the past couple of months, and we cannot leave it at that. If I had more time, I could really give you more examples of this.
In my speeches, I often warn against generalisations. The President said last week at Fort Hare, "Don't paint all Africans with the same brush." It is the right message, which has to be carried out more strongly. However, he must add, "Don't paint all white Africans with the same brush", or perhaps, even better, "Don't paint all South Africans with the same brush."
Before we can solve South Africa's poverty, unemployment, shortage of infrastructure, poor service delivery, and other problems, it is important that there are mutual trust and good relationships. The current climate being created, for I am not sure what reasons, and the irresponsible comments of certain leaders are really accomplishing the opposite. I thank you. [Applause.]